blog: The Fear of Missing Out
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title: The Fear Of Missing Out
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date: 2020-08-02
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tags:
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- culture
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- web
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---
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# The Fear Of Missing Out
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Humans have evolved over thousands of years with communities that are small,
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tight-knit and where it is easy to feel like you know everyone in them. The
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Internet changes this completely. With the Internet, it's easy to send messages,
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write articles and even publish books that untold thousands of people can read
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and interact with. This has lead to an instinctive fear in humanity I'm going to
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call the Fear of Missing Out [1].
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[[1]: The Fear of Missing Out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out)
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The Internet in its current form capitalizes and makes billions off of this.
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Infinite scrolling and live updating pages that make it feel like there's always
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something new to read. Uncountable hours of engineering and psychological
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testing spent making sure people click and scroll and click and consume all day
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until that little hit of dopamine becomes its own addiction. We have taken a
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system for displaying documents and accidentally turned it into a hulking
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abomination that consumes the souls of all who get trapped in it, crystallizing
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them in an endless cycle of checking notifications, looking for new posts on
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your newsfeed, scrolling down to find just that something you think you're
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looking for.
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When I was in high school, I bagged groceries for a store. I also had the
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opportunity to help customers out to their cars and was able to talk with them.
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Obviously, I was minimum wage and had a whole bunch of other things to do;
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however there were a few times that I could really get to talk with regular
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customers and feel like I got to know them. What comes to mind however is a
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story where that is not the case. One day I was helping this older woman to her
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car, and she eventually said something like "All of these people just keep
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going, going, going nonstop. It drives me mad. How can't they see where they are
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is good enough already?" I thought for a moment and I wasn't able to come up
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with a decent reply.
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The infinite scrollbars and newsfeeds of the web just keep going, going, going,
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going, going, going, going and going until the user gives up to do something
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elses. There's no consideration of _how_ the content is discovered, and _why_
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the content is discovered, it's just an endless feed of noise. One subtle change
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in your worldview after another, just from the headlines alone. Not to mention
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the endless torrent of advertising.
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However, I think there may be a way out, a kind of detox from the infinite
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scrolling, newsfeeds, notifications and the like for the internet, and I think a
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good step towards that is the Gemini [2] protocol.
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[[2]: Gemini Protocol](https://gemini.circumlunar.space/)
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Gemini is a protocol that is somewhere between HTTP and Gopher. A user sends a
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request to a Gemini server and the user gets a response back. This response
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could be anything, but a little header tells the client what kind of data it is.
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There's also a little markup format that's a very lightweight take on
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markdown [3], but overall the entire goal of the project is to be minimal and
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just serve documents.
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[[3]: Gemtext markup](https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/gemtext.gmi)
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I've noticed something as I browse through the known constellation of Gemini
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capsules though. I keep refreshing the CAPCOM feed of posts. I keep refreshing
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the mailing list archives. I keep refreshing my email client, looking for new
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content and feel frustrated when it doesn't show up like I expect it to. I'm
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addicted to the newsfeeds. I'm caught in the trap that autoplay put me in. I'm a
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victim to infinite scrolling and that constant little hit of dopamine that
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modern social media has put on us all. Realizing this feels like I am realizing
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an addiction to a drug (but I'd argue that it somewhat is a drug, by design,
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what better way to get people to be exposed to ads than to make the service that
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serves the ads addictive!).
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I'm not sure how to best combat this. It feels kind of scary. I'm starting to
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attempt to detox though. I'm writing a lot more on my Gemini capsule [4] [5]. I'm
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starting to really consider the Fear of Missing Out when I design and implement
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things in the future. So many things update instantly on the modern internet, it
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may be a good idea to attempt to make something that updates weekly or even
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monthly.
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[[4]: My Gemini capsule](gemini://cetacean.club)
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[[5]: My Gemini capsule over HTTP](http://cetacean.club)
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I'm still going to attempt a few ideas that I have regarding long term archival
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of the Gemini constellation, but I'm definitely going to make sure that I take
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the time to actually consider the consequences of my actions and what kind of
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world it creates. I want to create the kind of world that enables people to
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better themselves.
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Let's work together to detox from the harmful effects of what we all have
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created. I'm considering opening up a Gemini server that other people can have
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accounts on and write about things that interest them.
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If you want to get started with Gemini, I suggest taking a look at the main site
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through the Gemini to HTTP proxy [6]. There are some clients listed in the pages
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there, including a _very good_ iOS client that is currently in TestFlight.
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Please do keep in mind that Gemini is very much a back-button navigation kind of
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experience. The web has made people expect navigation links to be everywhere,
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which can make it a weird/jarring experience at first, but you get used to it.
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You can see evidence of this in my site with all the "Go back" links on each
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page. I'll remove those at some point, but for now I'm going to keep them.
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[[6]: Project Gemini](https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/)
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Don't be afraid of missing out. It's inevitable. Things happen. It's okay for
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them to happen without you having to see them. They will still be there when you
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look again.
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